


Silver Water

by orphan_account



Category: Tomorrow Series - John Marsden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:43:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	Silver Water

On Silver Water  
The two leader dogs were standing in the spacious underground cavern. The rough walls showed a greenish tinge. The ground was smooth and green. The only light was an unearthly glow from behind them. An espium light, most likely. There was a subterranean stream, affected both beautifully and unnervingly by the minimal lighting, running through the middle, separating the darker, back half of the roughly rectangular cavern from the half where the two dogs were before it, again, disappeared into the rock. A passage from behind them was the main exit.  
The dogs looked just like any other. The first one, the one on the left, was a deep, stormy grey all over. The other was half a light grey colour, and half a brilliant white. Four more similarly commonplace dogs were called in with a signal.  
All they knew is that they had been in this underground place for a long time. None of them had been out of the underground fortress for weeks. There was danger all around.  
They had all originally been from Earth. There was an accident, a bizarre accident, which caused them to be sent here.  
Finally, one more dog appeared, holding a metallic object in its mouth. It put whatever it was down.  
None of them had seen anything like it before.  
The first one, whose name was Vortex, asked the one who had just come in what exactly them item was.  
"Don't know", it replied quickly and to-the-point.  
"Cirrus? Meepee? Do you know what this thing is?  
Vortex and two of the others came over to it, obviously curious. Cirrus, the grey-and-white dog, began after a few moments. "I don't know what it is either", he said. "Maybe use the universal scanner in 534? It's only a few rooms away."  
"Yes, 534 isn't far from our location. We've used universal scanners before, and that one isn't forbidden." Meepee supported.  
Meepee was smallish, brown, and not that intelligent or useful. It was amazing, Cirrus thought, that Vortex had chosen her to be 3rd in the group.  
The fortress, as they had come to think of it, had been built by humans. Due to the fact that the humans were mostly interested in mining espium (because it's an ideal fuel) and unobtainium (because it's a component in more complex devices) from the vast artesian systems in that world, and because they had all undergone an experimental process to enhance their intelligence, they could do pretty much anything they wanted.  
Meepee gathered the remaining three dogs -- Pomenus, Fireep, and Tenloey -- to take whatever it was to room 534. It was a long way, this being room 599.  
The four of them ran down the branch of the fortress -- The fortress was a large one, the kind with five or six thousand rooms, but it was mostly constructed as a backup storage base, so its human population was only in the low hundreds. The branch of the fortress was an enormous corridor -- probably five hundred meters at the minimum -- with doors on each side every few meters. It certainly didn't help that it was so dimly lit.  
Passing 560, everything was still fine, although it was hard to see.  
Finally, they reached it. Room 534.  
Somehow getting the door open, they entered. The universal scanner was a huge metal object taking up half the room. Fireep, who was carrying the item to be sampled, put it down on the sensing plate while Pomenus turned it on at a power source on the left.  
The device's screen, positioned below and to the left of the central sensing plate, lit up. Almost immediately, it started flashing the message, "Scanning…"  
It stayed like that for several minutes. When finally it changed, a diagram of the item showed up on the screen, as well as another message, "Cool Gate Component. This should be kept safe at all costs."  
Switching off the machine, they left again to go back to Vortex and Cirrus.  
Telling them what it was, they found only Cirrus there, with the greenish glowing light having been turned off.  
Cirrus explained the situation. "Vortex and that other one left. The power's down, and the espium light ran out. It only had a few minutes left, anyway."  
"How did they leave?" Tenloey asked.  
"The secret way out. Can't tell you too much, though. Me and Vortex are the only ones who know where it is. Of course, it was an emergency, so I'd say you won't be able to find out on your own."  
Cirrus had good intentions, Fireep thought, and Vortex had chosen well. It's just that he could be a bit, well, elitist at times.

"But the power hasn't been down for ages! What went wrong?" Tenloey said, interrupting Fireep's line of thought.  
"The hydroelectric system's got a problem with its mechanisms on the sixth floor. I mean, it's completely broken. Not only that, but there are now several thousand tonnes of water gathered in the bottom. The water has reached the level of the 5th floor. The walls aren't made for that kind of pressure. Given their specifics, I'd say they'll break in less than fifteen minutes, by which time there will be enough water to flood the lower mines, and possibly the 6th floor as well. Twofivelevenum may be the cause."  
Pomenus was the only one who understood all that.  
"In that case, how about we go there and see the problem for ourselves? I want to look around." said Pomenus curiously, eyes glittery as he looked forwards.  
"That seems like a good idea. We better time ourselves, though. We should be safely on the 4th floor or higher in ten minutes, though. I'm setting this timer… There. Done."  
Cirrus, Meepee, Pomenus, Fireep, and Tenloey went rushing along the branch.  
"Where has Vortex gone?" asked Tenloey as they ran.  
"I don't know for sure. Lower mines somewhere, most likely."  
"Also", Tenloey began again, "What's Twofivelevenum? You've never mentioned it before."  
"It's a substance, found on this world only, that's really dangerous."  
"Why is it so dangerous?" he ventured to ask.  
"Because it DOES things. It can turn water into a substance called 'Isogen', a liquid which is lighter than air. It's also possible that it's the force behind the creation of bizarre underground forests. I don't really want to talk about it, I don't like it."  
The end of the branch was stunning. There was an enormous round room, although most of it was taken up by a huge glass cylinder in the middle. The cylinder usually contained a lot of water falling down, but it was silent, and the water was reduced to a trickle. The cylinder also housed the hydroelectric system.  
In ten places around the room, there were hallways, each leading off to a branch like the one they just left. Cirrus wasted no time in running into the corridor marked "200" and into room 203. This was the elevator room.  
In only a few moments, the elevator came up to their level. They entered, and Pomenus set the elevator to go to the sixth level.  
The elevator descended. It descended for quite a long time.  
When it opened, they were on the lowest floor, the 6th below ground level.  
Then, they split up. There were six minutes left.  
Leaving 5203, Pomenus looked at the cylinder again. Even though it was almost fifty meters wide in places, Everything he could see in the cylinder was underwater.   
Cirrus still had a purpose here, though. He dashed down 5700.  
Fireep, Meepee, and Tenloey decided to look at the lower mines, in case something related to the disaster was down there. The mines branched off out of a hole in the floor. Eight or nine streams filled a giant pool in the middle of the mines, below the hole. There were twice as many tunnels radiating from the room as there were streams. This was there the humans worked, so they had to be very careful. Meepee didn't know whether they were on or off duty, because underground there is no day or night.  
"Only one minute left!" shouted Cirrus from somewhere, re-emerging.  
The three of them left to join Pomenus.  
"I've forgotten something!" Pomenus suddenly yelped. I need to get it! It'll be ruined!  
They all followed Pomenus, except for Cirrus. Three minutes later, when they returned, Pomenus was holding another of the odd Cool Gate components.  
"Time's up!" said Cirrus. "We should've been out of here ages ago! It'll break any second! There's no time to use the elevator!"  
There was a sudden crack.  
"No!"  
Water was already rushing out.  
"Follow me! There's a way out in 5099! Run!"  
Running through the 5000 hallway as fast as they could, they were scared. They had only reached somewhere around 5040 before a small wave of water entered.  
A second thunderous crack was heard.  
Passing 5060, they were sure that the water was rising, but it was still very low. "Aah!" yelped Tenloey, who was falling behind, a sudden rush of water almost knocking him over.  
They were all tired and out of breath when they reached 5099, the large end cavern. It was just like it was back at 599, the espium lights out. Also, like 5099, there was a stream through it, but this time it was larger, creating a large gap where it entered and exited the room.  
"What now?" Fireep asked, the water level almost twenty centimeters.  
"Here."  
The stream isn't very fast today. That's good. We can get through here.  
He climbed into the place where the stream left.  
"Follow me" Cirrus said again.  
One by one, they followed him.  
Although they had to go single file, it wasn't too cramped, and the tunnel floor was just as smooth as it was out in the cavern, but at one point it started getting steeper. It started flowing faster as more underground streams joined it.  
"I'm assuming this tunnel goes to the same place as the one in 599 does, but under that logic, this tunnel should be almost flat. It's very steep! I have a bad feeling about this.  
Finally, there was a near-vertical drop into a deep, murky pool. A few more streams led here.  
"Alright. Now I don't know where we are. This isn't good."  
Fireep was paniced.


End file.
